As the 2024 presidential election nears, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump are working to get their message out to potential voters. Dave Ramsey has offered both candidates the opportunity for an interview and revealed that Trump has accepted the offer.
In a post to social media, Ramsey shared that he had made an offer to both candidates. However, his message was recorded from the lobby of Trump Tower, where he shared he had just met with the former President.
“Our team reached out to both Vice President Harris’s camp and President Trump’s camp about the opportunity to sit down and talk about ideas,” said the Ramsey Solutions founder. “Now, keep in mind, what happens in your house is more important than what happens in the White House. But I’m standing in Trump Tower, and I just finished interviewing President Donald Trump.
“It was a great interview. You’re going to want to see it. We’ll post it next week,” Ramsey concluded.
Our team reached out to both Vice President Harris's camp and President Trump's camp about the opportunity to sit down and talk about ideas.
Now, keep in mind, what happens in your house is more important than what happens in the White House.
Dave Ramsey did not elaborate on whether or not his conversation with the Republican nominee will air on his popular The Ramsey Show, or if it will be a digital exclusive.
WBBM in Chicago is in the midst of celebrating the 100th anniversary of its launch with a content series dedicated to remembering the biggest moments in the brand’s history.
“WBBM@100” features conversations between midday anchor Rob Hart and various former and current station personnel.
Earlier this week, former Broadcast Managing Editor and Suburban Bureau Chief Julie Man joined Hart to reflect on her time with the Audacy Chicago all-new station.
“We cover so many sad and tragic things that when we get a chance to really cheer on with the rest of the people that love the same thing that we do, that really sticks in your memory as a good memory.”
WBBM originally signed on the AM signal at 1330 AM on February 6th, 1924. It began broadcasting on 770 AM on June 15, 1927, before finally landing on 780 AM in March 1941 as part of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. WBBM adopted its current all-news format on May 6, 1968.
Kelly Ford has been promoted to Music Director at Connoisseur Media’s Country (103.1 The Wolf)/Long Island.
Ford joined the station this past August. (BMM 7/15). Ford also hosts the syndicated “Backstage Country” night show.
WWWF-FM Program Director Patrick Shea said, “It’s become hard to count how many times I’ve heard, ‘wow, I love Kelly so much. You’re lucky to have her.’ We couldn’t agree more. Our team is lucky to have her, and Long Island is lucky to have her.”
Ford added, “I’m beyond excited to step into the role of Music Director at 103.1 The Wolf. It feels like a natural evolution in my career, allowing me to deepen the relationships I’ve built over the years in country radio and Nashville. I’m pumped to collaborate with our amazing team under the leadership of Patrick Shea to help shape The Wolf into a beloved heritage station that resonates with our listeners and showcases the incredible talent in our genre.”
From 2015 to 2018, Ford co-hosted Westwood One’s “America’s Morning Show” and “Ty, Kelly & Chuck” in the New York market. In January 2019, she launched her own local morning show on 94.7 WNSH, which she hosted until the station discontinued its Country music format in 2021.
You may have heard the story about what went on recently in Chicago between Audacy’s 670 The Score and former host Jason Goff, who wanted to be new host Jason Goff but declined the position in the end because of the terms offered. If you want to learn more, you can catch up by reading the story from Goff’s side or the column Demetri Ravanos wrote on the subject earlier this week. One of the things Goff talked about was the ridiculously one-sided contracts Big Radio companies give that protect the company and offer the potential employee very little protection or consideration.
For way too long Big Radio has gone with the philosophy that you need them a lot more than they need you. My how things have changed. There are plenty of options for content creators to create content and for media salespeople to sell media. Nobody has to feel like they are held hostage anymore by these companies and with what’s happened with the non-compete situation, that offers more opportunity.
IF you as a host and you as a salesperson have done what I have been recommending for years you could leave one of these companies and most likely find yourself much better off. For example, if talent has cultivated relationships the right way, have engaged with their audience and have grown it by providing them more and more quality content in other places, you are set up to succeed should the inevitable happen.
If you are a salesperson and you have not just done well selling advertising, but you have actually become so good at it that clients look at you as part of their marketing team and see you as not just their radio salesperson, you are set up for even greater success. They are buying you. And if you left Big Radio tomorrow and started your own ad agency or went to work at another quality station that serves a similar audience, they are coming with you. Most likely, they are also going to be your best marketing because as well as you have done for them, they’re happy to tell the world.
But what this really boils down to is that if Big Radio companies had a history and reputation for treating employees well and of being companies that make smart decisions, invest in the right things and the right people and are looked at as forward thinking, many of its problems would go away.
To be very clear here, when I say Big Radio, I am referring to iHeartMedia, Audacy and Cumulus. I’ve worked for two of them, Cumulus and Audacy, although I prefer to say I went to work for Entercom, a much different company from Audacy. I also worked for Townsquare Media and am glad to tell anyone who asks they were a great company to work for and they treat their people well. I am sure you will find some that will tell you the opposite, however, that is any big company, but it won’t be a lot of people.
What I can tell you is that a lot of the people I thought made Townsquare Media a great company to work for still work there. What I can also tell you is that when people leave Townsquare, they generally do so somewhat reluctantly. Because they are in smaller markets, a lot of their people end up going to bigger markets, but they do so as someone who is ready for that next challenge because of the training and support they were given by the company. Generally, they end up more frustrated at the next place because they’ve seen that a big media company can treat people well and still push them and have high expectations, even through difficult times.
I don’t find that to be the case with the other companies and neither do you. You hear horror stories. You hear about markets that have been through a dozen GSMs in a short period of time, buildings that are falling apart and have old equipment, salespeople who don’t have working equipment, horrible digital customer service and sales training, being hard to pay and do business with, having a compensation structure for salespeople that is confusing, managers getting laminated cards telling them how to spend their time, staff not getting paid well or rewarded or not being willing to do what it takes to get the best people.
Then there’s the whole ‘we think your business should spend money on marketing, but our business doesn’t spend any money on marketing’ thing and that’s an entirely different column in itself.
At the BNM Summit in Washington DC at the beginning of the month, it wasn’t hard to pick out who worked for Big Radio and who didn’t. The ones who looked horribly stressed and just talked about how they have no budget to do anything or no willingness on the part of the company to try anything new or to hire better people – that’s the attitude you get a lot from talking to people who work for Big Radio.
Talk to the next level down in size, the Beasley’s and the Hubbard’s of the world, they have problems, too, but they seem to be a little less stressed, have more positivity in them, seem more willing to share what is happening in their markets and look as if they still enjoy what they do. Plus, maybe it is different where you are at, but I generally hear positive things about these companies, sans the occasional employee having a bad exit.
Big Radio folks look nervous anytime their phone rings or buzzes as they wonder if this is the call that says their gigantic incredibly well-billing news station was just leased out to a direct format competitor of one of your other properties or that their time with the company has come to an end, however, we thank you for your service and look forward to replacing you with someone from another market who we will pay 0-20% more for them to try and do your job as well.
I don’t want to make it sound like there aren’t good people in these companies, there are, many of them. People who work hard, are smart and really want the market to succeed. To be frank, it’s just that the Big Radio companies are too big, have made too many big mistakes and have, in a lot of cases, had the wrong people in key spots. All three have gone bankrupt, how much more evidence do you need?
Getting back to the main point here, there is no trust whatsoever between Big Radio and their employees. The people who should be the ones telling everyone how cool their job is and how much fun you can have while working hard are the ones that are out there saying the industry is terrible and telling all the bad stuff, ultimately because they weren’t treated well by their employers.
Those types of things make their way into the ad agencies, the news media, social media and everywhere else. All it does is add more fuel to the fire that the industry is one you might want to stay away from.
To use a sports term, radio often commits a lot of unforced errors. We like to blame others and say things are a misconception when the truth is people may think negatively about radio because that’s what people in the radio business told them, mostly negative things.
Big Radio talks about relationships a lot, when the first thing it needs to do is build better relationships in their local markets with their employees.
I worked for Cumulus right as Mary Berner took over. I will tell you I thought the world of her when she started her tenure off by saying she wanted the company to go back to making decisions locally with the support of corporate versus things coming from corporate and local markets doing what they’re told to do.
She did this after trying as best she could to meet with as many of the local managers and employees as possible, so that she could get real feedback, not information filtered through Market Managers or Regional Managers who would just tell her what they thought she wanted to hear. I can’t speak on how it has gone since then and she wasn’t given a very clean slate to start with, but she identified one of the big problems very quickly and then acted on it.
As a quick side note and one suggestion on how to start fixing the problem – I believe the Regional Manager position should be completely reimagined, or eliminated, for that very reason. If someone is not in the markets, willing to dig in, make big sales calls and really try to understand the market and its people, get them out of your organization. Find people willing to go to the markets and discover problems by talking to the people and then helping them with solutions, not just waiting for a phone call from the local manager who is scared to tell you they might need help or that there are problems.
I once had a Regional Manager call me to talk about an auto client who had just stopped all radio advertising in the market. Our cluster had the client on for $30k per month. Mr. Regional wanted to make sure that I understood the goal was not to find another $30k per month client to make up for this loss. That would be really hard.
He wanted me to think of it as needing SIX new clients at $5k per month because, well that equals $30k. I believe he made a quarter of a million dollars per year to pass along that kind of wisdom. Meanwhile the 45-minute call took my time away from leading my team or being out helping someone sell something.
That is how you end up not knowing about problems for months, years or in some cases decades. Many of the Regional Managers in Big Radio are former market managers on the way out the door who think their days of working hard are over. They aren’t going to bring up problems to leadership, then they would have to work on a solution. Having them sit in their home office, acting like Charlie Townsend from Charlie’s Angles (heard sometimes but never seen) is not helping your company at all, it is hurting the company, and I bet this is a big line on your yearly operating budget.
If Big Radio doesn’t start to fix this problem, it will just continue to get worse, and we will all keep wondering why nothing changes and the best and brightest never even look in our direction.
Bottom line, Big Radio needs to remember the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do to you.
I can’t narrow it down this week as I heard two things this week I want to highly recommend to you. We have written about both of these which is what led me to listen in. In my opinion, and this appears to be universal, Bill Belichick has been pretty incredible on everything he has done as far as media this year.
Many, including me, were concerned his lack of personality would overtake his knowledge and that has been far from the case as he has shown some personality, and nothing is overshadowing what he says because he is pretty much offering a PhD in football each time he is on a show. Earlier this week I eavesdropped in on the Let’s Go! podcast Belichick takes part in with Jim Gray, Maxx Crosby and Peter King. It was that good that I am mentioning it again. Jim Gray (or even Tom Brady) asking questions for Belichick to answer – it doesn’t get much better. Click here to read my feature on the show.
Another podcast I tuned into was the first two episodes of Tom Rinaldi’s new Tom Rinaldi Presents: Sacred Acre podcast which dropped last week and now drops weekly. Episode three just came out as well. Rinaldi tells the story of a high school football coach who was way more than just a high school football coach, who was shot and killed by one of his former players.
Rinaldi is such a great storyteller. This project is his second in the podcast series. Derek Futterman talked with Rinaldi recently and you can read that here. The podcast is on all the major podcast outlets, or you can click here. A pro tip might be to save this for your next road trip so you can binge listen to the whole series after it all comes out. Probably make that drive go by real fast.
In Barrett Media’s ‘Meet the Leaders’ series presented by Point-to-Point Marketing, Demetri Ravanos talked with Ginny Hubbard from Hubbard Broadcasting. She actually said something that pertains well to my words above.
Morris said, in response to a question about the way the radio industry is judged by outsiders, “I think in life, we teach people how to treat us. I think the industry, in some ways, inadvertently has taught the media and the advertising industry to see us in a certain light that in many cases is not accurate…But how we tell that story and how we update our story will be inherent upon us to do it constructively.”
I thought those are three incredibly insightful sentences. The first sentence goes for not only how radio as an industry is thought about by others, but it starts with how radio people treat radio people and talk about radio. The second sentence is just a true statement and leads to the third sentence which only radio can reverse the trend by constantly being the ones who are promoting the industry and its successes.
The whole article is insightful and makes it easy to see why Hubbard seems to be one of the more well-liked companies in the industry. To read it, click here.
As news media outlets put the finishing touches on their election day coverage plans there are three things likely being overlooked but shouldn’t be.
1 – Statistics don’t lie, statisticians do
2 – Calling someone an expert means absolutely nothing
3 – Pandering to your political base will cause more division in the country, making it more difficult for us to have unity after 2024
One: Different sample sizes, margins of error, and endless ways to manipulate the data, statistics are the manipulative older sibling of math. They tell you to eat the birthday cake before the party then rat you out to Mom or Dad the first chance they have.
Take a look at the latest polls:
Morning Consult: 45% Trump, 50% Harris, 5% Other
Reuters / Ipsos: 44% Trump, 50% Harris, 6% Other
Quinnipiac: 48% Trump, 48% Harris, 4% Other
Economist/YouGov: 44% Trump, 47% Harris, 9% Other
Rasmussen: 49% Trump, 47% Harris, 5% Other
If the math was so concrete these numbers wouldn’t have a four-to-five-point difference. Yea, statistics are great for sports because they are based on numbers which already happened. However, predicting the actions of people is not always easy.
Ok sure, back in 2010 Northeastern found 93% of human behavior is predictable. However, it’s that 7% which our impulses take over. It’s this decision making in our frontal lobe which statisticians are trying to determine. Yet, there’s billions of things which could happen between now and November 5th which could impact our vote.
Furthermore, voting in the general election has already started in some states (Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virgina started on Sept. 20, Illinois began on Sept. 26 while all other states being early voting in October).
Yet, if statisticians polled those who have already voted we would see the polls be skewed again because most of those who vote early lean toward the democrats (Why? because they are the party who have advocated for the ability to vote early).
In fact, some astute statisticians at Berkley studied how often polls are actually correct and it’s not pretty. Professor Don Moore put his findings best saying, “Most polls report a 95% confidence interval. But we found that the actual election outcome only lands inside that interval 60% of the time—and that’s just a week before the election. Further out, the hit rates fall even farther.”
When pollsters say they are 95% sure their election outcome will be correct, they actually mean they have no idea. Nolan Ryan had a better statistical outcome of winning a game (.526) than these statistical groups do of guessing who will win (and by how much) 3 weeks out from election day.
So, if we really want to talk about who will win the White House in 2024 instead of crunching numbers how about we send reporters out just to talk to Americans? And not in a ‘you have a Trump sign in front of your house why are you voting for him’ kind of way. Literally, go to a diner in middle America, sit-down and have coffee with people and ask who they are voting for and why. It would make for more interesting segments, and it would require less guessing.
Two: Being an expert means nothing. Being an expert used to mean something back before high profile attorneys started playing to the cameras and paying people to give their ‘opinion.’
Same thing goes for the people who call themselves guru, wizard (unless you went to Hogwarts), or my person favorite super genius (who are you Wile E Coyote?). All these people are playing a role, supporting one side, likely because they are getting paid. An expert opinion on why one candidate is better than another shouldn’t sway you because you can have two experts say polar opposite things.
Furthermore, who is handing out the title ‘expert’ anyway? Do you take a quiz on LinkedIn and afterwards it populates in your news feed? “Krystina Carroll just finished a course in ‘expert-ing’ on LinkedIn. Send her congratulations!” STOP. Enough with the experts, enough with the talking heads, just stick to the facts. There’s a Presidential election happening. It will likely be a close race. Here is what the candidates did today. The end.
Bringing on an ‘expert’ to decipher what something means is just a distraction from the actual facts of the day. Here is where the economy is, here is what is happening with crime, here is what is happening overseas (and yes, we do have members of our military in active war zones right now.)
This is what we need to be focused on when it comes to the election cycle. It shouldn’t be that much more different than a regular news cycle. Why? because the issues that are going to affect us on November 4 will still be there on November 6 regardless of who is elected.
Three (and this is a big one): pandering to your political base will cause more division in the country, making it more difficult for us to have unity after 2024.
Calling members of the other party a “threat” is the most dangerous thing you can do in society. What’s worse is that it’s happening on both sides of the media aisle. OAN’s headline ‘Overthrowing the Constitution: All Sides Are Waging War on Our Freedoms’ is just as bad as MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle saying Donald Trump is a ‘threat’ to our democracy (which you are wrong we are not a Democracy, but I digress). This is just one example of the left and the right manipulating their audience against each other.
Yes, we have free speech and freedom of the press, but we have a responsibility to find unity when it feels like there is none. It’s been years since we have seen a single outlet trying to find unity in all the chaos. It is this lack of integrity and show of unity from the press which is dividing the country more than Donald Trump and Kamala Harris combined.
If neither side of the media can help unify, this country will fail. We are a Constitutional Republic. Our First Amendment protects us, the press, from government/political backlash (provided your facts are right). Meaning we are supposed to ask the tough questions of our politicians (yes, that is a direct dig at you, Stephanie Ruhle). We are supposed to treat both sides equally. Most importantly, we have a responsibility to support whoever is elected on November 5th because if the President fails, we fail.
When considering Leslie Scott’s depth of experiences on both the programming and digital sides of the industry, it might be apt to refer to her as “the Reese’s Cup of radio.” Two great tastes that taste great together, especially as things hurtle toward the convergence of on-air and online, right?
First, let’s take a quick look at Scott’s credentials and resume: She started her industry career as an intern at Clear Channel’s St. Louis cluster. “That was back when Clear Channel was still Clear Channel and when people could still be in high school and work in radio,” she says, laughing. Scott’s next stop was at WPGU/Champaign, IL, where she worked in programming, promotion, and sales.
After college, her radio career took her to the MD/nights post at WMAD/Madison, then to WFXH/Savannah, GA as APD/MD/midday jock. In February 2012, she moved to Seattle and became the Brand Coordinator for Entercom Triple A KMTT (103.7 The Mountain). Scott was upped to Digital Program Director of the cluster, and she also became PD of storied Alternative KNDD (107.7 The End) in 2015. “Some of my career highlights include consistently generating The End’s best ratings over several years in the PPM era, many sold-out events, building an incredible staff, and transforming The End’s brand for the modern era of radio,” Scott says. “It was really a special time.”
While there, the initial sparks of her digital side came out. “I was one of the first people in radio to come up with strategies for using social media and how to coach people on those strategies,” she says. “I helped people who were not social media-savvy understand its importance.” Recognizing that people all have different creativity and comfort levels with social media, Scott was able to coach to talents who are naturally good at social media alongside some who needed to learn how to use it effectively, commenting, “I’m very proud I was able to do that for Entercom/Seattle since all radio people need to realize why social media is important.”
Entercom and CBS Radio combined like Voltron, and, in the midst of the pandemic, Leslie rose to Regional VP of Programming for a bunch of the company’s West Coast Alternative stations, overseeing not just The End but also KNRK/Portland, OR; KKDO (Alt 94.7)/Sacramento; KITS (Live 105)/San Francisco; and KROQ/Los Angeles. “In 2020 – at a point where there wasn’t even a COVID vaccine yet, so we were still firmly in lockdown – Entercom took a really big swing and innovated the way they were doing Alternative radio,” she explains. Scott was in that role for about a year.
The enlarged Entercom put on a new outfit and began calling itself Audacy, and the new company doubled down on its digital presence. “Because of my digital and programming background, I segued into a position with the Digital Content team,” Scott says, relating how she started out as Lead Curator for Audacy’s exclusive digital music stations, then grew into overseeing more specialized content.
“In addition to the usual digital music stations and podcasts, we tried some more innovative app offerings and worked across the local programming teams and corporate teams,” she says. “During my 2 1/2 years there, we tried a lot of things and really took the motto of ‘fail fast.’” This means acting quickly on learnings to grow what worked and discontinue what didn’t work.
Scott fully leaned into her role as Audacy’s VP of Digital Audio Content, especially working to emphasize the importance of promoting the company’s mobile app and platform. “How people approach and find content and listen to things is changing,” she says. “I talked to various parts of the company about why it’s very important for stations to talk about and promote our app and how listeners can use it.” Scott feels a lot of pride about being able to speak to all these different communities in radio about why it’s essential the industry chart an intentional and thoughtful digital path.
Sadly, in April 2024, her Audacy odyssey came to an end as a result of layoffs. Since then, Scott has been on the hunt for her next adventure, and she’s had some free time to reflect more holistically about what challenges radio faces, as well as best steps forward.
One of the bigger issues she sees is a lack of time to devote to executing longer-term strategies, especially where developing a dedicated brand strategy is concerned. “We know there are bottom lines to meet, and developing a brand takes time,” Scott says. “You have to be willing to take that time to consistently show your audience who you are. That’s what it comes down to,” she comments, likening the repetition – and positive outcome – to building muscle by doing reps at the gym over multiple visits. “One of the challenges is that radio brands often don’t have the time in this day and age to prove themselves.”
Another path to success Scott believes in involves truly understanding your audience and being focused on who that audience is. For example, she brings up stations who say they target a specific gender or age group and asks whether they understand what targeting that demographic really means.
“It’s easy for someone at a high level to say, ‘we’re going after women 25-54, they’re married and have kids and own a house and drive a carpool,’ but that age group of women is not a monolith,” Scott says. “Who are they, how are they living their lives, what are they excited about, what are they scared about, what help do they need, and how can you connect with them about all of these things on a consistent basis? It’s important for a station to understand the different types of people – women, men, people, whoever – who are using your station, why their differences need to be recognized, what about your station draws them in, and how you can identify them in a bigger and broader way.”
Speaking about her principles, Scott refers to herself as someone who believes strongly in consistency – of brand, of humans, as a leader, as a manager, and as a friend. “That comes through in how I build my strategies,” she says. “You can have all the time in the world, but if you’re not consistently showing up for your people – your audience and your staff – then it doesn’t matter.”
She sees being able to work with the unbelievably creative personalities in radio as a privilege and takes that very seriously. “To build a relationship with a creative person, you have to earn their trust,” Scott says, relating things back to consistency again. “I want to see what motivates them creatively. To coach someone on the air, you have to find what motivates and excites them about their job and makes them want to come to work every day, along with what success looks like for them.”
Scott recognizes that our industry values ratings and revenue as success but calls out that not everyone is personally motivated by those metrics. “Your morning show isn’t waking up and saying, ‘We’re going to do the best live read possible in order to drive revenue!’ You have to find out why someone does what they do every day and how you can coach to those motivations.”
Finally, Scott believes in the power of building a community but cautions that it means different things to different people. “Community took on a new meaning in the pandemic,” she reflects. “Just because a personality is out at a show of an up-and-coming band, it doesn’t fulfill all definitions of community. There are plenty of communities that are national and global. Being online makes that possible,” Scott says, tying those digital and on-air elements together again.
Leslie Scott is available now for full-time and project-based work and can be reached at imlesliescott@gmail.com.
CLARIFICATION NOTE: In my column last week refuting some of the claims made by Westwood One Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard in his analysis of Edison Research’s “Share of Ear” study, I questioned the listing of SiriusXM’s ad-supported listening as being 5% back in 2017 and in Q2 2024 based on the August 2024 introduction of the company’s “Free Access” plan.
Thanks to Edison Research’s Larry Rosin, who clarified with me that 5% figure indicates listening credited to the satcaster’s ad-supported Talk channels. It is worth noting that those ad-supported Talk channels are currently only accessible via a paid SiriusXM subscription package that also includes its music channels.
Personally, I dispute Bouvard’s comparison of only Talk-formatted SiriusXM listening to all ad-supported over-the-air AM/FM stations across both Talk and music-based formats because it is not a 1:1 correlation. And since Bouvard also compared those numbers to Spotify and Pandora audiences, I will mention that Spotify’s own research department has done studies showing Spotify users who listen to podcasts tend to engage longer with that platform because they add the Talk-based listening to their consumption rather than at the expense of music listening.
The debate about prioritizing reach or frequency in radio advertising campaigns is ongoing. As radio salespeople, we are trained to sell light, medium, and heavy schedules. Name awareness maintenance, sales events, or new store location launches all require different levels of spot schedules to get the desired result. Start adding TV, billboards, and digital into the mix, and you start spending more money and must know when to focus on reach or frequency. So, is it going to be reach, frequency, or both?
Frequency Focus
1. Niches When your target market is smaller and specific, think of Men’s big and tall retailers; reaching a broader audience may not be profitable. For instance, if you’re marketing a big and tall men’s store, increasing the frequency of your ads gives you a chance to sell emotionally, logically, and for different occasions like suits, shorts, or team-branded shirts. Ads for XXXL shorts and shirts can fall flat on a broader market, making increased reach a waste of resources. Finding media to target men over 6’2” and size 40 waist is your challenge!
2. Buy NOW Market: If your target market is ready to make a purchase, such as selecting a restaurant for a special occasion, increasing the frequency of your ads can be effective. Multiple exposures to your message can motivate this person to visit the website and make a reservation immediately.
3. Lots of Competition: In a saturated market with many competitors, such as heating and cooling dealers, high-frequency campaigns can help your company stand out. Sometimes, being top-of-mind can win the business, whether you lead in the category or not. Private equity companies that own HVAC businesses can buy the market and drown their competitors in ads, especially with pay-per-click online ads, and drive sales when consumers are ready to make a decision.
When to prioritize Reach
1. What’s New When introducing new locations, products, or services, increasing reach is important. When McDonalds rolled out breakfast in the mid-1970s, they needed to familiarize as many people as possible with this new offering. By increasing reach in their advertising strategy, McDonalds could grow their client base with morning commuters and build awareness for egg McMuffins, hotcakes, and sausage.
2. Seasonal Promotions For established brands running seasonal promotions, reach becomes more important than frequency. Think Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. Starbucks customers know that the start of Fall is when pumpkin spice lattes go on the menu in late August every year. With as many customers as Starbucks, they must let as many of them know about it as possible, and they come running.
3. Get a Lift If your goal is to increase awareness of your business and improve customers’ perceptions of you, focus on reach. Broadening your audience, such as adding music stations to your primarily spoken word-focused buy, helps increase overall brand recognition and can lead to more customer loyalty and engagement.
Ideal Reach and Frequency
When putting a campaign together, you may want to set weekly frequency goals like 2-3 exposures or more if you have a more short-term goal. This can help reduce consumer fatigue and promote a more long-term approach to advertising. On the radio, consider running drive times for work commuters and daytime video ads for those not working during the day or on weekends for recreational pursuits. Sell coffee in AM drive, dinner ideas during the day, and weekend vacations. Meet your customers where they are at that time and get the most bang for your reach and frequency buck.
Sixteen years ago, in a move that left sports consumers and industry professionals stunned, Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo decided to leave WFAN to sign a deal headlining a new all-sports talk channel at SiriusXM. Eponymously named SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio, the outlet has served as a national home for subscribers to hear national programs that appeal to their interests.
The deal pinned Russo in afternoon drive for five hours, spanning a portion of the same daypart through which he and longtime co-host Mike Francesa rose to national prominence with their Mike and the Mad Dog program. Russo’s egress from WFAN marked the conclusion of a partnership which had consistent ratings dominance despite ostensible contrasts between both hosts. When Russo was deliberating a move to SiriusXM, he valued the presence of Mel Karmazin and Howard Stern with the company and was cognizant of his rapport with Francesa.
“I had Karmazin there, who gave me a great offer, so I figured, ‘If I’m going to take an opportunity to make it,’ and I was a little younger – I was 49, sort of at the halfway point there, ‘If I was going to make a change, this would be the time to do it,’” Russo recalled. “So again, a lot of life is the right opportunity at the right time – being in the right place at the right time – and Sirius was sort of that kind of spot for me, so that helped considerably.”
Sixteen years later, Russo has signed a new three-year contract extension with SiriusXM that will keep him on for the foreseeable future with additional vacation time as well. As the host of Mad Dog Unleashed, he will continue delivering three hours of compelling, engaging sports talk to listeners from around the country on weekday afternoons. At the same time, he felt that since SiriusXM expressed interest in reaching a deal, it was proper for him to oblige and continue hosting his show. Russo’s deal with SiriusXM comes under the leadership of Eric Spitz, who was promoted to vice president of sports programming after Steve Cohen stepped back from the company.
“I thought that it was the right thing to do, so I’m glad I did it,” Russo said. “It was a relatively – as all contracts with Sirius have been – it was a relatively painless process. We have a very good working relationship with them. They’ve been great to me and they wanted me, so I said, ‘What the hell? I’ll still do it,’ so there you go.”
Thrilled to be back for 3 more years!
Four decades into my career I can honestly say I am as excited to turn on that mic and talk to my listeners every day as I was when I first started my career!
— Chris Mad Dog Russo (@MadDogUnleashed) July 24, 2024
Over the years, Russo has observed several broadcasters and athletes retire only to later discover that it was premature and found themselves yearning to return. This is a sentiment Russo believes Francesa held upon his retirement from WFAN in 2017, a fleeting decision in his return to the outlet several months later. Russo does not want to have regrets or remorse, and the timeline of Francesa helped educate him to prevent entering this enigmatic domain.
“The grind of radio is different,” Russo said. “You’ve got to do it every day – not every day is going to be [one where] you’re going to have a ton to talk about. You got to maneuver, but I thought at this point it would be the right move to continue, and again, the key to the whole thing is Sirius still wants me.”
When Russo first joined SiriusXM, he agreed to host a five-hour program but came to recognize that the time resembled seven hours on terrestrial radio because of the dearth of commercials. Although Russo would have thought more seriously about the show duration in retrospect, the flexibility and autonomy granted to him, along with the audience he had accrued over the years, facilitated the rise in interest in his program. In fact, he feels it is important for talk show hosts to have a following before joining SiriusXM rather than establishing themselves on the platform, partly due to modes of listener engagement.
“Phone calls are a weapon,” Russo said. “It’s a piece of artillery that you can use to help you get through these shows and do a good job with it because you want to have a conversation with people, and you can’t put 5,000 guests on every show – you just can’t do it – and I think coming to Sirius, being in New York, some people followed Stern, some people – the Stern and Mike and the Mad Dog fanbase was somewhat similar. I think that all worked in my favor.”
Whenever he takes the air, Russo is focused on being fan-friendly and immersed within the community. Talking with listeners rather than at them fosters relatability and appeal, along with discussing a wide array of topics. Growing up the son of a jewelry salesperson and studying history at Rollins College enriched his understanding of rhetoric and contextualization.
“Being a talk show host sometimes is about salesmanship because you got to make sure that what you’re talking about, they take an interest in – take an interest in what you’re having to say – and some of that has to be you got to convince them that this is worth listening to, and that’s about salesmanship,” Russo explained. “That’s about going out there and letting your personality sort of ingratiate the audience a little bit, and I think about that a lot too.”
Over 50 years of watching these QB's @PatrickMahomes is the best I've ever seen!
A preponderance of sports media programming, especially during the autumn months, tends to be focused largely on the gridiron. Russo proclaims an avidity for both football and baseball, cherishing the platforms on which he can circulate his thoughts. Yet since transitioning to satellite radio, there have been alterations in terms of how he approaches the show and the content therein.
“Versatility is important, and the good thing about SiriusXM [is] I don’t have to worry about ratings,” Russo said. “I don’t have to worry about pounding the Mets, making sure I do Mets or Yankees constantly.”
Before Russo started hosting on WFAN in 1988, he worked for various stations in other marketplaces, including WEXI 1280 in Jacksonville and WKIS News Talk 74 AM in Orlando, where he honed his craft and built an audience. Following his time in Florida, Russo returned to the New York area to work on WMCA before moving to the all-sports radio station the next year. These were largely individual endeavors, however, necessitating he and Francesa to deviate from their desires to host alone in afternoon drive and instead work in tandem at WFAN.
“Timing’s very important in life, and Mike and I had very good timing there that first couple of years, which helped, and success,” Russo said, “so if we had some problems with each other or the format or whatever the case might be, [the] role, you get good ratings, and all of a sudden, you don’t worry so much about the problems because the ratings are the most important thing, and we got good ratings, probably pretty quickly [in] the first couple of books.”
Conversely, Russo hosts Mad Dog Unleashed solo and was also responsible for programming at SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio in his early tenure. Since shortening his program to three hours, he has had time for other ventures, including High Heat, a baseball-focused afternoon television show on MLB Network. The league-owned broadcast entity built a studio at SiriusXM so he did not have to travel to Secaucus, N.J. to do it, and he has been given the flexibility and trust to anchor the show.
“I understand it’s a league operative, and that’s a little trickier with when you’re working for a sport because, obviously, they want to sell the sports and there will be times where you have to be critical, but MLB Network allows me to be critical most times – all times, really,” Russo said. “I can’t recall – there’s a couple – but I can’t recall too many times where they say, ‘Chris, not this today – please.’ They do pay the checks; they pay the bills, so you have to understand that, but I’ve always loved baseball.”
Two years ago, Russo made his inaugural appearance on ESPN’s First Take after executive producer and featured commentator Stephen A. Smith asked if he would want to participate in segments about baseball. Shortly thereafter, Russo became a weekly contributor to the debate program, appearing on Wednesday mornings to provide his perspective on a variety of topics. The opportunity, which he has likened to a career renaissance, has broadened his audience and given him exposure to a new generation of consumers amid the digital times.
“They don’t watch the whole show – they see it in clips – and it also helps you with the social media thing because, let’s face it, I’m more of a linear guy,” Russo said. “I come from that age where the consumption is radio and TV and newspaper, and that has changed, and so First Take is part of that where they all pay attention on social media. Everybody communicates with one another, and First Take has helped there too.”
Russo explained that he views the topics on First Take through the lens of a sports fan and that his job is to take pressure off Smith and make the show easier for him. Whether it is engaging in candid repartee or compiling sports-oriented lists, he tries to assist his colleagues and act as a team player. Russo interprets the network tolerating his occasional knocks of its programming and personnel as something it puts up since he “goes above and beyond” and adheres to directives.
“It’s given me a different platform for a different audience,” Russo said. “It’s only once a week, it’s two hours. I can talk all the subjects. Mike and I had debated half these things for years and years…. no difference doing it with Stephen A. and a cast of characters, and for the most part, ESPN lets me do what I want to do.”
Viewers look forward to Russo’s weekly segment detailing what he is mad about where he blends sports news with aspects of his personal life, including betting, golf and the usage of gummies. The segment, he explained, is placed in the second hour of the show since that is usually when ratings tend to decline. Russo thinks about the presentation over the weekend, receives ideas from his radio producer Eddie Erickson and speaks to First Take producers about it on Tuesday afternoons.
“I kind of look at that eight-nine minutes there as my time to make sure that I do a good job,” Russo said. “It’s almost like if I do a good job with the ‘Mad About,’ the rest of the show, no matter what I say, it’s not a big deal as long as I do a good job with those eight minutes, so that’s what I try to do.”
Smith has become synonymous with First Take and ESPN over his time with the network, but his future on its air is not guaranteed as his contract expires in July. With negotiations between both parties currently ongoing, Russo would be shocked if the outcome was a parting of ways. Although he cannot speak for his colleagues on First Take, he would be very surprised if Smith left the show and company as a whole.
“He’s too good,” Russo said of Smith. “They need him, he needs them. Again, I don’t know anything. Nobody’s telling me, and I haven’t really spoken to him about it.”
That being said, if Smith left the program and Russo was to be approached about a larger role, he would most likely decline the prospect. By the time his new SiriusXM contract ends, Russo foresees potentially working less while also acknowledging that radio would be the last thing to go because of his penchant for the medium.
Russo’s son, Colin, recently started co-hosting an afternoon drive program on ESPN West Palm on which he and co-host Mike Rizzo discuss the latest news in local and national sports. Russo acknowledges that his son does not take many calls but speaks with him several times per day to review elements of the program and give him advice. Since Mad Dog Unleashed coincides with the show, he is unable to listen live and reviews occurrences after the fact. In having two sons of sports radio hosts working together, Russo conceded that it is a little weird but something that has gone well thus far.
“I try to tell him that, ‘You got to make sure your partner feels comfortable too. He’s very important. You’re doing a two-man show for the foreseeable future here. You got to make sure you get along,’” Russo said. “I think that’s good advice I can give him based on me and Mike.”
As Russo continues to press forward in sports media, he utilizes the lessons he learned from his past both in and out of New York City and continues to try and sell people to gain shares of attention. Commensurate to technological advances, consumers have augmented accessibility and are able to explore new avenues for content.
Russo continues to drive consumption of content in which he takes part across various domains. Within these endeavors, he exhibits that nothing can get by him as consumers turn on and try new shows, fueling effective cross-promotion and aggregate windfall.
“Let’s not make sports talk too complicated,” Russo said. “Go on there every day and have an audience and do a good job and cover the sports. If you do that every day and you come to work every day with a little enthusiasm, you’re going to be relatively successful.”
Carlota Gonzalez is currently the Midday host and APD/MD on X107.5 in Las Vegas. It’s her second tour on the station during her 25-plus years in Las Vegas, and while the station has changed considerably over the years, one thing remains for sure. When you hear her voice and see her face, you immediately know it’s her and immediately feel like she’s the coolest person in the room. Her plethora of knowledge on the Rock and Alternative formats comes from years of living the lifestyle of the format and living in the Vegas community for just as long. It’s no secret that West Coast Rock is unique, and Las Vegas Rock, even more unique and specific to its territory.
Carlota began her radio career with that grueling commute from Southern to Northern California back in the day. “I was driving from Orange County to Fresno every weekend, just to commute from Fresno to Porterville every Saturday and Sunday Night, then back to The OC,” she explains. “Finally, after about four months of that, I moved to Fresno, where I did the three-hour total commute every day until I landed a gig at KDGE 105.9 The Edge, Fresno, in 1992. From there, I worked at 95.7 The Fox, New Rock 104, and wrapped up my Fresno tour at KRZR, The Wild Hare, under E Curtis Johnson, whom I adore.”
“In March of 1998, I moved to Las Vegas to do middays at X107.5 Xtreme Radio. My four-year stint at Xtreme was some of the craziest radio daze and I will always cherish them. In 2002, I made the move to KOMP 92.3 Las Vegas, where I stayed for 18 years. I was Midday and Music Director. Those days are incredibly special as well. And now, after a pretty torrid Covid time, I’m back at X107.5 in Vegas as APD/MD and Middays.” Her passion project is KilPop, a rock/alt music with attitude website/social media page that covers all things attitude and all things rock.
Even as a Pop Programmer who spent most of her time programming in Vegas, I have always said that Vegas is a Rock market, and no one knows that more than Carlota. “Vegas is indeed a ROCK market, and it’s a special market, a special community,” she says. “And it’s a tight-knit community. We don’t like being told who we are by outsiders who only come here to party and lose their money (and their dignity) on a four-mile stretch of debauchery. We are far more than drinking and gambling. We are a community that cares about each other, and we care about our surroundings. As far as the Alternative format goes because we are a rock town, and the history of Xtreme Radio itself, the Triple A/ Pop/Alt does not work here. Especially if your gold library is the true Alternative, like Green Day, System of a Down, and Nine Inch Nails.”
Speaking of Green Day, Carlota and the powers that be at X107.5 have recently removed all of the band’s music from their library due to some nasty comments Billie Joe Armstrong made about the City of Las Vegas. At a recent concert at Oracle Park, the frontman, originally from Oakland, took a shot at Oakland A’s ownership and Las Vegas after the team’s announcement they would be moving to Vegas in 2028 for good when their new stadium is built. The team played their last game at Oakland Coliseum this week. They will temporarily play in Sacramento until the construction is complete.
“I (expletive) hate Las Vegas. It’s the worst (expletive) hole in America,” said Armstrong. Read the full article here.
“Look, nobody’s pretending us taking them off our playlist is going to have a major impact on the band’s future or finances,” says Carlota. “But I don’t take too kindly to what Billie Joe said about Las Vegas. This city is unique and it’s full of beautiful people. We’re more than just that five-mile stretch over there. It may be the pulse of our economy, but it isn’t the heart or soul of our city. No more Green Day on X107.5.”
For those of you who don’t know, Xtreme Radio was Active Rock back in the day, And KOMP is still a rock station. X107.5 today is technically considered an Alternative station. I asked Carlota, “Is there a big difference between Rock & Alt, as far as target, content, music, etc? “Yes!” she says. “Alt is a dirty word for those who like rock music and even for those who like Alternative Rock or, as I call it, Rockternative. Alt, IMHO, is thin and too pristine. It has no soul. Rock and/or Rockternative is not only multi-layered, but it has character and cuts and bruises. It has life.”
With Vegas, there are two distinct audiences: those who happen to be listening to the radio while visiting the City of Sin and the residents of Vegas. How do you balance that, or do you pay attention to the tourists at all? “I don’t think about tourists at all,” says Carlota. “They don’t live here, and they don’t have meters lol.”
One of my favorite features on Carlota’s show is “Carlota’s Box Lunch.” “Obviously, it’s a lunch feature that goes like this,” she says. “Winners get lunch for two from whoever and tickets for two to whatever, plus I super-size the box lunch with two requests that get played at the top of the Noon Hour.” Nothing groundbreaking, I know, but as a programmer, it’s great for both at work and lunchtime listening with a decent payoff.
Have you ever found it difficult being in a predominately male-targeted format? “Nah,” she says. “I know how to talk to men and have known forever. Men 25-54 are my spirit animals. But I will say this: I can’t think of any current female groups in the format that stand out right now, although Last Dinner Party does come to mind. I know Linda Lindas are making some noise, and that’s a great thing. I also love Lzzy Halestorm. I root for her, but I’d like to see more.”
After being in the market for so long, what are some of the things you hear most often when you meet people at events or on the street? “Oh, man…I grew up on you,” she says. “I used to listen to you when I was five, and they have grey hair. I’m like, ‘Oh Damn,’ LOL. It’s wonderful, though. It’s an honor to have been a part of so many lives and to have impacted them in a positive way.”
As you can imagine, anyone who has lived in Vegas for as long as Carlota has she’s got some great memories and stories. “There are so many to tell,” she says. “Being Onstage with Metallica for over 2.5 hours with his kids and wife right behind me looking bored because ‘UGH, we’re at dad’s work again.’ Watching so many artists grow through the years, like Godsmack, is also a highlight. But my biggest highlight was my 40-minute interview with Ozzy, as he told me stories through tears of his kids, his wife almost dying, and the fact that he has no idea what he was thinking when he decided to wear purple glitter capes in the 80s.”
OBC has been around for a while; this year, you guys are bringing it back. Talk about the show, its purpose for the station, meaning for the community, etc. “OBC is such a fabric of the history of Xtreme Radio, and when I came back, that was one of the biggest questions: ‘Are you going to bring OBC back?’ So we decided to go for it, even in this incredibly difficult live music climate (especially in Vegas). We decided to put it on in a venue NOT on or near the Strip, where the city of Vegas could easily come to it without the hassles of tourists, traffic, strip craziness in general, and most of all, FREE PARKING. Falling In Reverse is a monster right now, and they are from Vegas, so they were a natural fit to be headliners of the show.”
Carlota’s main concern about the format’s future is whether or not it can grow and thrive. “It’s not gonna happen if they keep trying to take Alternative the Triple A/Hot AC route and giving away the format to Rock radio. It’s bad enough that bands that began in Alternative, who rock would avoid like the plague back in the day, are now considered rock artist not Alternative artist. I mean, I heard there are some Alt stations that are NOT playing the new Linkin Park because it’s too heavy. That disgusts me!”
“We need more programmers with guts and the balls to do it right instead of being scared and only playing ‘safe’ records. We also need a chart for those of us who can’t and won’t be married to the Alt Chart because it’s loaded with a bunch of nonsense that doesn’t fit us. We need a Rockternative chart for us Misfits.”
By The way, Carlota’s thoughts on the new Linkin Park singer, “Love it!” Emily is great. It sounds great. And Mike has every right to continue his band and his legacy.” Another of her favorites: “I think the Dexter and The Moonrocks Song ‘Sad In Carolina’ is a dead heat strike right down the middle for this format. I mean, it feels so 1995 in the best way.”
In her final act of her rookie season on the court, Caitlin Clark made more history as the final game the Indiana Fever will play this season is now the most-viewed WNBA ever on cable television. The Fever fell 87-81 to the Connecticut Sun Wednesday night and lost the series two games to none. The game averaged 2.5 million viewers on ESPN and peaked at 3.4 million viewers.
The audience makes the game the most-viewed regular season or playoff WNBA game ever on cable. According to ESPN, the game was up 507% versus last year’s first round average. They also said it was the most-viewed cable telecast of the day among persons and males under the age of 50.
ESPN also carried what turned out to be the final game of the series between the Phoenix Mercury and the Minnesota Lynx. Minnesota took the game 101-88 and swept the three-game series. That game brought in an average of 1.2 million viewers and peaked at 2.1 million. The audience makes it the third most-viewed playoff game ever on ESPN. ESPN says it was an increase of 192% from the average first round game last year.
Additionally, the first round in full averaged 1.1 million viewers, making it the most-viewed opening round ever across all networks. WNBA Countdown was up 144% versus last season’s full playoff average on ESPN.
The semi-final round will begin on Sept. 29 with Connecticut taking on Minnesota and Las Vegas matching up with New York.
